Cinema of Partition

'Considered Ritwik Ghatak's masterpiece, this powerful and innovative melodrama revolves around a refugee family from East Bengal, victims of the Partition, who forge a precarious existence on the outskirts of Calcutta. Ghatak captures the complex play of creative and destructive forces at work in the attempt of each family member to survive. At the centre of this domestic tragedy is the self-sacrificing Neeta, the family's eldest daughter and provider for all, who struggles away at her job in the city. Closer to home, an elder brother practices to become a singer, while a younger one turns to factory work. Gradually, the father realizes the utter worthlessness of his liberal education in a modern world that has no place for Yeats or Milton and no regard for the ideals of nineteenth-century Bengali liberalism.’ Harvard Film Archive

‘Said to be Ritwik Ghatak’s favourite film, the quasi-autobiographical A Soft Note on a Sharp Scale portrays the People’s Theatre Movement of the late 1940s, agonising over its jealousies and schisms as two rival groups seek to put on a joint production. This tale of two rival theatre groups struggling to collaborate is at once a backstage drama and an allegory about the partitioning of Bengal. The dictatorial stance of the director Bhrigu led to some of his troupe splitting off to go their own way. Now young actress Anasuya tries to reunite the two groups for a production of the classic play Shakuntala. As Anasuya and Bhrigu draw closer, their personal and professional relations are complicated by the jealousy of Shanta, Bhrigu's former actress. The title comes from a Tagore poem in which a girl is compared with a particular melody and the melody, in turn, with Bengal. The script has an equally elaborate structure in which the divided mind of the film’s heroine, Anasuya, mirrors the divided leadership of the People’s Theatre and, ultimately, a divided Bengal.’ Harvard Film Archive

‘In The Golden Thread, Ritwik Ghatak takes the stuff of melodrama and turns it into a piercing political cry. Set in Calcutta after the partition of Bengal, the film focuses on two Bengali refugees, Ishwar and his younger sister Seeta, who are reduced to living in dire poverty on the banks of the river Subarnarekha. Amidst a floating population of refugees building temporary homes, they are joined by many other uprooted Bengalis, including an abandoned boy they attempt to educate and an idealistic school teacher and his family. Ghatak’s characters are emblematic of the trail of human debris left by colonialism in an increasingly industrialized, post-independence society. Still, as with all Ghatak’s films, The Golden Thread ends on a note of optimism, however frail.’ Harvard Film Archive

“Ethnic violence in the years after Indian independence is examined in "Train to Pakistan," a large-canvas drama that takes its time building an ultimately potent blend of suspense, moral inquiry and myriad character conflicts. …In 1947, Punjab border village Mano Majra can boast a long history of peaceful cohabitation between its Sikh majority and Muslim minority. But rumblings from other regions are soon heard here; army occupation, forced Muslim emigration to Pakistan and mob violence inevitably follow. Adapting Khushwant Singh's novel, Rooks effectively juggles numerous narrative strands, including two doomed cross-ethnic love affairs; a corrupt local official's unwillingness to prevent disaster; the jailing of an urban social worker and local-born bandit leader for a murder neither committed…”
Dennis Harvey, Variety

'Crossing the Lines challenges us to look at Kashmir with new eyes and to hope for a new way forward. Interviews with key figures and ordinary people from every side, rare archival footage and computer animations weave together a rich and moving narrative. Crossing the Lines chronicles the wars, the failed efforts at peace and the daily toll this failure exacts on those caught on the frontline of this dispute. It shows how India and Pakistan's dramatic nuclear tests spurred the conflict to new heights, and explores the ways in which India's great power ambitions, and the interests of the Pakistani army, continue to make peace so elusive. Rejecting the national ambitions of Kashmiris, Pakistanis and Indians alike, the film offers a vision of a shared future for all of South Asia built on a common humanity.' Pervez Hoodbhoy

‘Beyond Partition explores the trauma of partition and how it impacted on filmmakers from the Indian subcontinent. Renowned filmmakers, Gulzar and Govind Nihalani reflect on the communal violence they witnessed. Cinema veteran MS Sathyu and celebrated script writer Shama Zaidi question the very idea behind the division, while Pakistani filmmaker Sabiha Sumar focuses on some other powerful forces that generated the demand for Pakistan. Beyond Partition is, however, far more than just a recollection of the past from the view point of filmmakers. The film explores current issues including terrorism and the tensions that intermittently vitiate Hindu-Muslim relations as well as Indo-Pakistan disputes – a continuing legacy of Partition.  Beyond Partition depicts how popular cinema has dealt with the theme of Partition and why. A treat for all film lovers and media students, Beyond Partition depicts rare archival footage from India’s Films Division and brings alive the making of landmark films like Nimai Ghosh’s The Uprooted, MS Sathyu’s Hot Winds, Govind Nihalani’s Darkness, and Sabiha Sumar’s Silent Waters.’ South Asian Cinema Foundation

‘“There are so many graves here, sometimes it’s difficult to figure out which one is my son’s", says an old man matter-of-factly in the martyr’s graveyard. After 18 years of bloody armed conflict, with 60,000 civilians dead, thousands disappeared and 5,000 dead Indian soldiers, Sanjay Kak asks: what does Azadi ("Freedom") mean for Kashmir? We witness oppression, extreme poverty and religious propaganda. We watch the satirical farce of travelling performers. We visit an Indian Army camp and a psychiatric hospital where the traumatised population pour out their fears to the visiting doctor. We see smiling tourists who call Kashmir "a paradise on earth" and grieving families. Sanjay Kak spent three years in the region, and took a close look. Using unofficial footage, including poems and poetically shot landscapes, he paints a sophisticated, critical and lyrical picture of Kashmir, which goes beyond the slogans and official news.’ Munich Documentary Film Festival

'A Season Outside is a personal and philosophical journey through the shadows of past generations, conflicting positions, borders and time zones — a nomad wandering through lines of separation, examining the scars of violence and dreams of hope scattered among communities and nations' Amar Kanwar

‘Kanwar’s film opens with the sunset ritual of closing the gate on the border at Wagah-Atari, where military personnel engage in displays of nationalistic aggression before crowds of spectators on either side. This staged conflict, which is accompanied by a voiceover in which the artist quietly intimates that violence also occurred in his own family, shows how pervasively physical aggression may infect both cultures and individual human minds. While Kanwar engages in personal reflections, suggesting an evolution in his attitude toward Gandhi’s stance of pacifism as intervention, he juxtaposes these with images of enforced division, theatrical military posturing, and real violence: protesters are beaten by police; men cheer as two rams butt and lock horns; an older child pushes a younger one down; birds peck at a stray dog. While A Season Outside seems to be a documentary, it is presented in an abstract manner more conducive to an aesthetic or emotional effect than to exposé. The film’s soulful, elegiac audio track bears a direct but entirely nondidactic, nonjournalistic relationship to its imagery. Kanwar uses his voice to address unflinchingly, in the most personal terms, the human impulse for violence. Yet his visual approaches to the subject are mostly indirect, through metaphorical or reenacted conflict. The work’s title denotes a space or time removed from the brutality depicted within, perhaps suggesting the hope that, at some point, there might exist a possibility for peaceful cohabitation, if not reconciliation.’ The Art Institute of Chicago

Amar Kanwar has chosen this screening date to commemorate the anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination on January 30 1948.

'Set against the backdrop of the turbulent period in the late 1960's leading up to Bangladesh's independence from Pakistan, The Clay Bird tells the story of a family torn apart by religion and war. A young boy, Anu, is sent off to a strict Islamic school, or madrasa, by his deeply religious father Kazi. As the political divisions in the country intensify, an increasing split develops between moderate and extremist forces within the madrasa, mirroring a growing divide between the stubborn but confused Kazi and his increasingly independent wife. Touching upon themes of religious tolerance, cultural diversity, and the complexity of Islam, The Clay Birds has universal relevance in a crisis-ridden world. For many years, Tareque and Catherine Masud had dreamed of making a feature film based on Tareque’s childhood experience in a madrasa during the late 1960’s in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). This was a very turbulent period in Bangladesh's history, when as the eastern wing of the greater Islamic state of Pakistan; the country was torn between a strong secular and democratic movement and a pro-Islamic military junta bent on stifling dissent and reform. Although there are oblique references to the historical events of that time, the story the Masuds wanted to tell was essentially a human one, told through the eyes of a child.' MK2

‘Earth is based on Bapsi Sidhwa’s novel Cracking India, an autobiographical account of the partition of India seen mostly through the eyes of eight-year-old Lenny and focuses on the group of friends and suitors around her ayah Shanta. As rumours of India’s division begin to actualise, the groups of friends begin to separate into their respective religious of Hindu, Muslims and Sikhs. Lenny belongs to an affluent family of Parsees who remain neutral, but their neutrality leaves them uncomfortably in the midst of escalating hostility between their friends and neighbours… As the day of Independence nears, it is not only the country that gets divided, but also families from their homes and friends amongst each other. Although Deepha Mehta does not deal with the conflicting tensions prior to 1947 and the complex political motivations involved, Earth acts as both a humane testament to a tragic moment in India’s history and as a highly stylised interpretation of the tragedy of Partition.’ Jerry White

‘The title “Cracking India” written in fine black print down the spine of a paperback could very well have been emblazoned in neon. My attraction to it was immediate… My father and his family were some of the eleven million people that were uprooted from their homes during Partition. I grew up hearing stories about this particular holocaust, the carnage, the rapes and the mindless acts of violence that people who had lived together in relative harmony for centuries, committed against each other — all in the name of religion and nationalism… I wanted desperately to make Cracking India into a film, a particular film, Earth, which would be the second in my trilogy of the elements of Fire, Earth and Water… Not only did it seem imperative to show what the Partition did to innocent people, but somehow, in doing so, we hoped to understand why war is waged and why friends turn enemies, and why battles are invariably fought on women’s bodies.’ Deepha Mehta

‘Govind Nihalani’s controversial five-hour TV series deals with the Partition of India and led to major communal confrontations when the Hindu BJP organisations threatened to set TV stations afire and caused rioting in Hyderabad and Bombay. Based on one of Hindi author Bhishm Sahni’s best-known recent novels, the epic tale is seen mainly through the eyes of a tanner named Nathu and his pregnant wife Karmo. An effort to cause a communal conflict (one of the commonest strategies is to place a dead pig in a mosque) escalates into the pre-1947 conflagration throughout Punjab. The film effectively lumps together the activities of all the various political groups involved, including the British colonial powers and Hindu and well as Muslim communal fronts, which it contrasts with individual expressions of human concern that serve sometimes to dilute a notoriously complex historical episode into no more than a conflict between common good and politically motivated bad’ Ashish Rajadhyaksha